The EU says it “welcomes Apple's changes”; Apple will reduce its fees in the EU, charging 26% for apps with IAP, 20% for alt payments, and 15% for link-outs
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s EU terms have been repeatedly reworked, from a reduced commission structure announced in 2024 to the 2025 overhaul that let developers promote offers and alternative payments. The EU’s welcome signals that the latest fee schedule has moved from a compliance dispute toward an accepted operating framework.
The new pricing also sits alongside business terms scheduled to take effect October 1, including new commission tiers and a Core Technology Commission. That makes the payment-route fee differences central to how EU developers choose to sell digital goods.
First-order effects
- EU developers face explicit charges of 26% for Apple IAP, 20% for alternative payments, and 15% for link-outs, making the commercial trade-off among those routes more concrete.
- Apple retains a fee on each of the listed distribution and payment paths while lowering the price of routes that sit further from its own IAP system.
Second-order effects
- Alternative-payment providers and developers can compete for transactions against Apple IAP with a stated 6-point fee gap, while link-outs carry an 11-point gap versus IAP.
- Developers with payment flexibility have a stronger reason to design EU-specific checkout and offer flows, extending the direction set by the 2025 rules allowing offers and alternative payments.
Third-order effects
- The EU App Store is becoming a distinct regulated pricing regime in which Apple’s take rate varies by the degree of platform involvement, rather than one commission applying across payment choices.
- If this structure holds, EU enforcement will shape platform monetization through accepted fee bands and route-specific terms, not solely through mandates to permit outside payment options.
The trend: App-store regulation is shifting competition from whether external payments are allowed to the regulated price difference between Apple-controlled and developer-controlled transaction paths.